Specifying install location from commandline packagemaker

Question

Being new to packagemaker I assume I am just missing something. It does not seem all the options in the GUI are available from the command line. I have read the man page but maybe I just don't get it.

Of most interest to me is how do I specify the install locations of the files?

From the commandline to I need to also use installer in combination with packagemaker to get the same results of the GUI packagemaker? If so are there any examples you can recommend?

Thanks Vincent

Answer 1

What I ended up doing to change the install directory from command line:

• create the package
• extract the new package with pkgutil
• string search for install-location="/" in the pkg file's PackageInfo, replace with desired install location
• repackage with pkgutil

That works.

Answer 2

If you are creating packages using commandline mode of packagemaker, you will have to create a dummy directory which contains all your files in proper location. For example, if you have to install files A and B at /Library/Applications/ and /Library/Application Support/ respectively, then you create the structure as below.

Create a temp directory, say SourceFiles . Add your files to this directory as follows-

SourceFiles/Library/Applications/A
SourceFiles/Library/Application Support/B

Now use the flag --root in packagemaker commandline mode.

packagemaker --root SourceFiles/ OTHER_OPTIONS

The idea is that instead of passing location of individual files to the command, you create a similar structure in a temporary directory and just pass that directory as argument to --root flag.

More for commandline mode of packagemaker: http://macinstallers.blogspot.in/